I have not been for a while but have the distinct impression that the public show days are now just bolted on to the trade show because they know that pretty much whatever they fly they will sell tens of thousands of tickets on Saturday and Sunday.

The weekend flying display was dire, I paid to go in both and my opinion was that it wasn't good value for money.

I'm afraid we are talking about two different shows. FIA 2010 trade days were awesome F-22, A400M, 787, A330F, Chilean C295 etc but these had all gone by Thursday. Sadly if you want to see the real show you need to go on a early week trade day.